Useless Magic

Title: Useless Magic

Writer: Florence Welch

Publishing House: Fig Tree

Date of Publication: July 5th 2018

Rating: 5 stars

I mean, look at the endpapers!

 

‘’Songs can be incredibly prophetic, like subconscious warnings or messages to myself, but I often don’t know what I’m trying to say till years later. Or a prediction comes true and I couldn’t do anything to stop it, so it seems like a kind of useless magic.’’

                                                      Florence Welch

 

Important information: My mother has been successfully initiated to Florence coven. Mission accomplished.

Who wouldn’t fall in love with this outstanding book? A sublime piece of Art by a unique artist. Florence Welch is like an elf, a witch, a fairy, an Ophelia straight out of the paintings of Pre-Raphaelite artists. A song-writer and poet, inspired by mythology, Art, Literature. By life itself. So, let us leave the word to her…

There’s a ghost in my mouth

And it talks in my sleep

Wraps itself around my tongue

As it softly speaks

Then it walks, then it walks

Then it walks with my legs

                           (“I’m Not Calling You a Liar’’)

 

Now there’s no holding back, I’m ready to attack

My blood is singing with your voice, I want to pour it out.

The saints can’t help me now, the ropes have been unbound

I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground

                          (“Howl”)

And oh, poor Atlas

The world’s a beast of a burden

You’ve been holding up a long time

And all this longing

And the ships are left to rust

That’s what the water gave us

                      (‘’What the Water Gave Me’’)

And now all your love will be exorcized 

And we will find new saints to be canonized

It’s an evensong

It’s a litany

It’s a battle cry

It’s a symphony

                 (“Seven Devils”)

Oh the queen of peace

Always does her best to please

It isn’t any use

Somebody’s got to lose

Like a long scream

Out there always echoing

Oh what is it worth

When all that’s left is hurt

                     (“Queen of Peace”)

I’m worried we are entering an age of rage

Where only anger will be considered an asset

And the gentle will be mocked, then eaten.

Those with soft voices will have their tongues cut out,

As punishment for not using them the right way.

Don’t you know your words are weapons,

Kindness is obsolete,

As obsolete as handwriting,

As obsolete as silence and darkness in a city.

                               (“Rage”)

Now, if this poem isn’t the truest mirror reflecting our screaming society and the mob of the Twitter rebels, hiding behind a screen and dreaming revolutions while sitting comfortably on their sofas, eating pizza, I don’t know what is…

‘’I don’t know what makes a song a song and a poem a poem: they have started to bleed into each other at this stage,

                                You can have everything.’’